


But Half Deserved

by voxnoxsox



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bisexuality, Coming Out, F/F, Oblivious, everything can be solved through video diaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29141688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxnoxsox/pseuds/voxnoxsox
Summary: It was strange to have Caroline’s full attention. A nice kind of strange, but strange all the same. At a distance, Lizzie could dislike the way Caroline turned her charm on and off, clinically, whenever she felt she could manipulate someone with it. But it was somehow different when she felt the full force of it like this.
Relationships: Lizzie Bennet/Caroline Lee
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	But Half Deserved

The worst part about it was, Lizzie knew she had nobody else to blame. She’d been mistress of her own fate – wait, no, that wasn’t quite it. It was more that she’d willingly handed over the reins to someone else. And, though she’d been given plenty of chances to take them back, she never had. She’d just sit back and let her life be driven onto a completely new path.

  
She sighed to herself, causing the old woman next to her in the supermarket aisle to give her a slightly concerned look. She turned hastily to the bags of pasta, which wouldn’t judge her. At least, not so openly. She’d realized she was even being circumspect in the privacy of her own head, which really should set the alarm bells ringing.

  
Though, again, there were plenty of other alarm bells already ringing.

  
Caroline. She was an alarm bell in her own right. An unfairly gorgeous, unreasonably compelling, astonishingly persuasive alarm bell. Every time Lizzie found herself with too much time to think, she knew it made no sense. She had to end it. Whatever it was they were doing. It was stupid and she was going to get caught out eventually, which would cause no end of uproar.

  
And yet, when she was with Caroline…

  
Like she said. The woman was compelling.

  
Caroline had started it, of course. Lizzie couldn’t remember the exact reason they’d met up that evening – something to do with planning a birthday party for Bing, she thought it had been, with Jane too swamped at work to do the thing justice – anyway, there they’d been, just the two of them in a bar with unnecessarily dim lighting.

  
Looking back, Lizzie thought she should probably have been more suspicious. Out of anywhere to meet, any time of day, Caroline scheduled an evening in a bar with mood lighting. And she’d actually scheduled it too, with an email invite linked to her calendar. Would a text have been too plebeian? Then again, Lizzie was always suspicious of Caroline. It was like a constant state of being. Fret over her mother, make time to check in with Charlotte, wonder what Caroline was up to.

  
Lizzie remembered she’d been surprised that Caroline hadn’t got straight down to business. Instead, she’d kept up a flow of small talk, asking after their mutual friends and acquaintances – there were a surprising number, what with Jane and Bing – and relaying some well-honed anecdotes about a recent charity gala she’d been to. She’d been – surprisingly pleasant company. Though to do her justice, she’d always been capable of being pleasant company when she so chose.

  
She’d said as much to Caroline, that night. She’d wanted to – throw her off balance, or something. Jam the spokes of her smooth social prowess. Caroline hadn’t been perturbed. She’d simply raised one of her perfectly contoured eyebrows.

  
“Is it a crime to expend my energy on the people I care about, Lizzie? I’m not unkind to people, you know. I simply see no reason why I should exert myself for their comfort when I have no ties to them.”

“But you’re being nice now,” Lizzie said, trying to wrap her head around that logic. “Is this because you need something from me? I’ll help with Bing’s party even if you don’t take the time to – butter me up. Or whatever it is you’re doing.”

  
“Whatever it is I’m doing?” Caroline repeated, with a small, slow smile. “Is that what you think I’m doing, Lizzie? Buttering you up?”

  
“I don’t know what you’re doing.” Lizzie knew she sounded irritated, but it was Caroline. She didn’t care enough to modify her tone. “Look, let’s just sort what we need to sort and then we can get back to our lives.”

  
“I wanted to check in with you,” Caroline said instead. She leaned one hand over and placed it on top of Lizzie’s where it was resting on the table. “I know it must be hard for you right now. What with the break-up, and Jane so busy with Bing and her job, and Charlotte so far away. I want you to know that I’m here for you.”

  
Lizzie stared at her. Caroline’s hand was still on top of hers. She was rubbing her thumb slowly up and down Lizzie’s wrist, and her gaze was fixed on Lizzie’s.

  
“You’re up to something,” Lizzie said finally. “I don’t know what, but…”

  
“Of course I am,” said Caroline, with a little tinkling laugh. “That doesn’t mean I don’t mean it.” Her thumb was still moving up and down, up and down. It was making Lizzie’s skin feel oddly sensitive. She hadn’t known there was so much sensation in that spot. Were there a lot of nerve endings, or something?

  
“You have to tell me what you’re up to,” Lizzie insisted. She felt out of her depth, suddenly, so she clung to what she knew. Caroline was acting suspiciously. Lizzie was going to work out why.

  
“I’m not sure you’re ready for that.” Caroline stared at her for a moment longer then looked away, releasing her hand as she did. Lizzie flexed her hand, wondering why she felt so strange.

  
“We should talk about venues,” Caroline continued, and it was as if the moment had never happened. “Now, I was thinking…”

  
Lizzie chalked it up to – well, she wasn’t sure what, exactly. Only that Caroline was up to something.

* * *

Lizzie wasn’t sure if it was that evening, precisely, or if it would have started happening anyway. At all events, she blamed Caroline.

  
It was just that she started – noticing things.

  
She’d always known that Caroline had incredible hair, but she found herself struck one day by how well it framed her face. And there was – something, about how Caroline flicked it back over one shoulder. Lizzie found herself caught in the movement a few days after the evening meet-up, when they both happened to be at Bing’s place. Her breath hitched. Caroline’s eyes flicked to her and she looked away, unsure why she felt obscurely guilty.

  
The day of the birthday bash, she found herself watching Caroline’s hands as she went around tweaking the decorations until they were all exactly aligned. They were just very graceful hands, alright? Lizzie realized she was arguing with herself and went to distract herself by calming Jane down as she wondered if the tables groaning with food wouldn’t quite be enough for everyone.

  
And it – kept happening. Lizzie would watch Caroline’s hands, her hair, her mouth. At last she mentally threw up her hands and admitted that fine, she would have to reassess her own sexuality, not a big deal. And maybe it was Caroline that had sparked it, but that meant nothing more than admitting Caroline was a beautiful woman, which was just objectively true. Like, Lizzie failed to see how anyone could look at Caroline and not see how beautiful she was. That in no way changed Lizzie’s opinion of her conniving, self-centered ways, or anything else between them. This was just something new Lizzie was learning about herself. It didn’t involve anyone else. It didn’t involve Caroline.

  
And that might have been that. Lizzie did love a good project, and no sooner had she accepted that she might be turned on by more than just a manly physique than she embarked on her research. It wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of places to turn to. God bless the internet!

  
She had a vague idea of talking to Jane about it. Just as soon as she’d done a bit of proper research and had more to say than ‘your soon-to-be sister-in-law’s perfect mouth sent me spiraling and now my search history is nothing but classic lesbian films and in-depth articles about the history of LGBTQ communities in America.’

  
No, she wanted to be on slightly firmer ground before she started that conversation.

  
But then – Caroline happened.

  
Lizzie knew she shouldn’t have forgotten about the fact she was plotting something.

* * *

Lizzie genuinely couldn’t remember the pretext for why she’d ended up at Caroline’s apartment. It had been a week after the birthday do, but Lizzie’s memory of how it started was entirely eclipsed by how it ended. All she knew was that they’d ended up drinking wine sitting on barstools in Caroline’s picture-perfect kitchen. Caroline was being funnier than usual; she was telling jokes without her usual bite, and Lizzie was surprised by how much she was laughing. She didn’t really associate Caroline with humor. It was also strange to have Caroline’s full attention. A nice kind of strange, but strange all the same. At a distance, Lizzie could dislike the way Caroline turned her charm on and off, clinically, whenever she felt she could manipulate someone with it. But it was somehow different when she felt the full force of it like this.

  
The bottle had been almost at an end, Lizzie knew, and she’d been wondering when she should start taking her leave. There had been a pause in conversation, and the next thing she knew, Caroline had carefully put her hand on Lizzie’s again. Something in the deliberate movement caught Lizzie’s breath.

  
Caroline said something, but Lizzie couldn’t have told you what it was. All she knew was that this time Caroline didn’t leave her hand where it was. Instead she let it slide slowly, softly, up Lizzie’s arm. Lizzie found it outrageous that nothing more than a hand on an arm could feel like that.

  
Caroline was watching her carefully.

  
“You know why you’re here, Lizzie,” she said, and Lizzie realized, dizzyingly, that she did. Like a blurred image suddenly snapping into focus, she could see how Caroline had been leading up to this. Circumspectly, slowly. “We can call it a night now, if you like. Or…”

  
“Or what?” Lizzie found herself saying.

  
Caroline smiled. “Or we can see where things go.” She was closer than she had been a few moments ago. Her eyes were large and fixed on Lizzie’s, glinting, and her hand was still slowly sliding up Lizzie’s arm. It reached her shoulder and caressed the back of her neck, lightly. Caroline was so close.

  
“Let’s…” Lizzie wasn’t sure how to breathe. Her arm was on fire. Her neck was burning. Caroline’s fingers were so light, and Lizzie had to stop herself leaning back into them. “Let’s… see where things go.”

  
“Oh, Lizzie.” Caroline’s breath huffed against her cheek, her mouth. “I was so hoping you would say that.”

  
And she closed the gap between them.

* * *

It had been unfairly good. That was what Lizzie told herself over the next few days, when she found herself rubbing at her bottom lip with a finger, her mind far from where it ought to be. It hadn’t been fair of Caroline to pull out all the stops like that, not when it had all been so new to Lizzie. True, when you got down to it, there were a lot of similarities between two people stripping down together, whatever their gender. But in a lot of other very important ways, it had all felt entirely new with Caroline. With a woman.

  
Fine, she told herself sternly, it had been unfairly good, and that was all there was to it. She could put it behind her and at least definitely tick the box to say yes, there was no way she was entirely straight. She could thank Caroline for that, at least. But that was all. She wasn’t enough of an idiot to let it happen again.

  
The trouble was, it turned out she was. She was exactly that much of an idiot.

  
She’d been careful to act no differently around Caroline when they say each other afterwards. Caroline had moved to LA not long before Lizzie, and though she knew a lot more people there already than Lizzie did, she still turned up regularly at her brother’s house. Jane was nominally staying with their aunt and uncle, but in practice she’d basically just moved in with Bing, so Lizzie was round there a lot too. That meant she regularly bumped into Caroline, even when Caroline wasn’t scheduling seductive wine evenings. She was prepared for it, and it was fine. Just like it had always been. She was careful not to try to see Caroline any more or less than usual.

  
So it was entirely Caroline’s doing that Lizzie found herself round at Caroline’s apartment again just two weeks later.

  
It became – more regular, after that. Lizzie was smart enough to realize that Caroline was very carefully leaving her plenty of room, plenty of get-out clauses. She never mentioned a next time when they met, and their meetings were now invariably just at Caroline’s apartment after Lizzie made sure to mention that she didn’t want other people knowing about it. It wasn’t worth the hassle, after all. It would soon be over, and Lizzie most emphatically did not want to deal with Jane and Bing trying to deal with a ‘break up’ between their respective siblings.

  
Because there was not a particular thing to break up. Neither of them bothered to put a name to it. It was just – Lizzie, going round to Caroline’s, and succumbing to her annoyingly compelling compliments. Or her irritatingly shiver-inducing touches. Or the habit she had of stepping back to unzip her dress, her eyes on Lizzie as she slowly reached back to let it –

  
Anyway. The compliments were the worst. Lizzie had always known Caroline had a sharp eye and a turn for ingratiating phrases; she didn’t have to be so good at them, though. Sometimes it was her noting how beautiful Lizzie’s eyeshadow was, always on the days when she’d put in a bit of effort at it or tried out a new shade. It was Caroline nodding as Lizzie described her elevator pitch for her fledgling company and pointing out which bits she found particularly effective. It was a fleeting smile of approval after Lizzie had put down one of Bing’s overly drunk friend-of-a-friends with a (though she said it herself) particularly scathing retort; Caroline had caught her eye in a moment of shared intimacy, I-see-what-you-did-there, and Lizzie had glowed with the conspiracy of it for a moment before she realized who she was doing it with.

  
It wasn’t all annoyingly thoughtful compliments, though. Lizzie had always expected this kind of arrangement – whatever it was – to be much more, well, bedroom-heavy. But Caroline kept on inviting her over for meals, and Lizzie wasn’t going to say no when Caroline was so much better at cooking than she was – or at least bought much better ingredients – and they couldn’t just eat in silence. At first, they stuck to small talk and topics of acknowledged shared ground. As time went on, though, Lizzie realized she was being – swept up, and determined to remind herself about exactly why she disliked Caroline. So she stopped avoiding everything that she knew they didn’t have in common.

  
After that, there were a lot more of what Jane might call ‘rather intense discussions’. In fact, they argued much more than they had before; their previous encounters had often been limited by the presence of other people, or the ability to simply walk off in disgust. That was a bit trickier when Lizzie was in Caroline’s apartment, and nigh-on impossible when she was in Caroline’s bed. Though the one time she did get so incensed that she actually got up and started stalking angrily out of the room, Caroline took the wind out of her sails by giving an exceptionally loud wolf whistle. Lizzie spun, astonished, to see Caroline as unperturbed as ever – as though she regularly made such ear-splitting noises. When she caught Lizzie’s eye, she gave her an exaggerated once-over.

  
“You look exceptionally ravishing when you’re angry, you know,” she said, “and doubly so in this particular get-up. Do tell me how I can get you to storm off in the nude more often.”

  
There was no way to hold onto her anger in that situation, not when Caroline rose a moment later to bundle her back into bed and prove how exceptionally ravishing she found her. At other times, though, there was no way out but through. And there seemed to be no end to the things they didn’t see eye to eye on. Lizzie was ready for the arguments on beauty standards and America’s class divides; she was less sure about how they ended up in conversations about private schools or ethical investments, but they somehow found time to disagree on those too.

  
Lizzie did find herself leaving enraged on more than one occasion. She was actually astonished, though, that it wasn’t more often. And somehow she always found herself going back. Caroline would simply leave it a few days, then send her usual kind of invitation. And Lizzie would go.

  
She didn’t tell anyone about it. It was surprisingly easy to keep secret. Since she had her own apartment – cramped and a bit dreary, but all her own – there was nobody to notice if she happened to spend a night or two elsewhere. She’d expected the change when she moved to LA, of course; of course she’d no longer have her family pouncing on her every time she went in or out of the house. But she’d still been kind of taken aback by the absence of it. The absence of just having people around as a comforting background hum. There was only so often she could abuse Bing’s hospitality, after all. Which, of course, Caroline had noticed. And now, a chunk of that alone time had simply switched to spending time with Caroline.

  
She and Caroline had agreed not to tell anyone early on, of course, but it took Lizzie a long time to think about bringing it up again. In the end, it was only because she realized with a shot of panic right to the spine that it had been months. More than six months since the first time Caroline had invited her over and slid that hand up her arm. That was a long time to keep a secret. She wasn’t sure she could reasonably keep on considering this as a temporary aberration. And one evening, as she was lying in Caroline’s unreasonably comfortable bed, tucked into Caroline’s shoulder, she decided to bring it up. It was partly because it had been in the back of her mind, the last few days. It was also partly because she was completely frazzled after an intense day trying to network with investors at a remarkably terrible conference, and had reached the state of tired where she blurted out everything in her head. So it popped into her head, and from there needed little encouragement to be voiced.

  
“I know why I don’t want to mention this,” she said. Caroline’s hand paused for a moment before she resumed rubbing slow circles on Lizzie’s shoulder. “But why don’t you?”

  
“I don’t know what gave you the impression that I need this to be a secret, Lizzie,” Caroline said. Lizzie kind of wished she’d asked when she could see Caroline’s face.

  
“But – your parents?” Great, now she felt like a dick for blurting that out. Was it terrible to just assume that Caroline’s parents would take it worse than her family would? Yes, on reflection, that was kind of terrible. Caroline hadn’t seemed to be offended, though; she’d started answering in her usual unruffled voice. It was hard to tell what she was feeling from her voice alone, though, Lizzie had found. You needed to see her face as well – particularly the way she swept her hair about. That was the biggest indicator of Caroline’s mood.

  
She realized suddenly that she’d compounded her terrible question with the terrible habit of not listening to Caroline’s answer.

  
“My parents, Lizzie, are well aware that I believe affection is not restricted to a single gender. Granted, I may have let them believe that I will eventually settle down with someone of the male persuasion capable of producing children with me, but that is simply a case of keeping my options open. There’s no point in worrying them about hypotheticals until I fall in love and want to take someone home to them.”

  
“Love,” Lizzie said, twisting to look up at Caroline. That had been the only part of Caroline’s words she’d managed to tune in on. She had got stuck on that word. The panic and the tiredness swept over her and led her instantly to the conclusion that Caroline had been talking about them. “Is that – is that how you would categorize this?”

  
Caroline simply stared at her in surprise for a moment.

  
“You’re not in love with me,” Lizzie said. She felt suddenly sick at the thought. “Are you?”

  
“You always did think very highly of yourself, Lizzie Bennett,” Caroline said. “You weren’t listening to a word I was saying, were you? You’d never have asked that if you had. I think you should get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  
And that was the end of the conversation.

  
As a result of that conversation, though, and also because nobody ever said Lizzie Bennett wasn’t good at freaking out for very little reason, Lizzie started overanalyzing every little thing that Caroline did the next few times they saw each other. What did Caroline think about – whatever this was? What did Caroline look like when she was in love? Surely not like this?

  
When she thought about the answer to that, though, she thankfully came to her senses. Caroline was definitely a classic roses and champagne kind of woman. If she was in love, she wouldn’t be sticking with home-cooked meals and endless arguments. She wouldn’t be exasperated with Lizzie quite so often, or be so keen to tell her she was wrong. Nobody loved telling Lizzie she was wrong more often than Caroline, and that was saying something.

  
So she decided to put the whole thing out of her mind.

  
But again, maybe as a result of that whole thing, Lizzie found herself deciding to – tell people. Or at least start telling people. She’d been putting it off for the simple albeit paranoid reason that if she disclosed her newly discovered bisexuality, people might suddenly notice that things had – changed, between her and Caroline. But she was sick of having this big thing that she couldn’t talk to her friends and family about. Okay, she was never going to talk about the Caroline part, but she wanted someone to talk about the rest of it with. She wanted to be able to drop it into conversations, talk it over.

  
She decided to start with Charlotte, again for a simple reason: Charlotte was too far away to track her movements and who she was or wasn’t spending time with. It might be a stupid reason, but hey, it was hers! Feeling slightly manic one afternoon in her own apartment, slightly panicky, she decided to stop wondering or planning and simply go for it.

  
She held her breath, and then called Charlotte.

  
Charlotte, predictably, didn’t answer. She must have listened to Lizzie’s everything-is-calm-I’m-not-panicking-at-all voicemail, though, because she called back just half an hour later.

  
“Charlotte!” Lizzie said overenthusiastically as she answered. “My bestie! You know, I just got the urge today to see how you are. How is life? How’s being the big boss? Did you make anyone cry today?”

  
“What are you really calling about, Lizzie?” Charlotte asked. Most of the time, Lizzie truly and deeply appreciated having a friend in her life who knew her as well – if not better – than her sisters. Sometimes, though, she felt that they’d spent way too much time together. Right now, for instance, she knew that Charlotte knew for sure that something was up, and she wouldn’t stop until Lizzie told her what it was. That was why she’d rung Charlotte, really. She wanted to tell someone – but she also really didn’t want to tell anyone. Charlotte would be able to wring it out of her.

  
“So,” she said slowly, pacing round her room. Would it help if she imagined she was just talking out loud to herself? Embarrassingly, she had been practicing in the time it took Charlotte to ring back. Always be prepared, another Lizzie Bennett motto! She pulled herself back to the call. “So, Charlotte, my friend. Would it be a surprise to you to learn that I’m, well, not as straight as I always thought I was?”

  
“Wow,” said Charlotte. “Okay, one minute, I am going to need to go somewhere else for this. No, Javier, that’s fine – hand it over to Melissa. Yes, I’ll be back in time for the meeting. See that nobody disturbs me until then, will you? Great.” Lizzie heard the sound of a door clicking shut, then Charlotte spoke again. “Lizzie! When did this happen? Wait – first, thank you for telling me.”

  
“As if I’d keep something like this from you,” Lizzie said automatically, helpfully glossing over the big non-hypothetical bisexual awakening that she was definitely going to try and keep from Charlotte.

  
“Still. So first, I’m a bit surprised in that I’ve never seen you interested in women, or like, given any classic signs of secretly having girl crushes that were repressed real crushes. Second, I’m also not surprised, because we both know that the prevalence of modern media depicting-”

  
“-depicting heterosexual relationships means it’s easy to picture yourself in that mould and not bother to look any further, yes, of course.” Lizzie was surprised at how relieved she felt, telling Charlotte. It’s not like she’d expected anything but a positive response. But still, the relief was there.

  
“But good for you, Lizzie. How do you feel about it? Is this like, a general realization, or is there someone in particular? Sorry, too many questions. You don’t have to answer them. Though you do have to tell me how you’re feeling about this.”

  
“Good,” Lizzie said, and was pleased to find it was true. “Like, it was disorienting at first? And I’m sorry, I’ve sort of known for a while but I didn’t want to say anything in case it – went away again. It sounds so stupid to say out loud.” It was even stupider when she thought about the real circumstances, but there was no need to mention that. After all, she had basically hoped that the thing with Caroline would go away, and any other female crushes were all still hypothetical at this point. “Like I know that even if these feelings only last a while, they can still be valid. But I – I just needed time, I guess.”

  
“That’s totally fair, Lizzie,” Charlotte said, at her most reassuring. “If you needed time to process on your own first, then great. If you want help telling people, I’m here for you. If you want to wait and – I don’t know, let it settle with me and Jane and Lydia and whoever else first, I’m here for that too.”

  
“Have I ever mentioned that you’re the best?” Lizzie flopped back on her bed and realized she was grinning helplessly at the phone. “Because you are. The absolute best.”

  
“I can stand to hear it a few more times,” Charlotte said. “So is there anything specific about this you want to talk about? Have you fallen head over heels? Was it the sight of Kristen Stewart in those new promo shots? Even I have a crush on her in those.”

  
“There’s… maybe someone,” Lizzie found herself saying. She was horrified even as the words came out of her mouth, but it was too late to take them back. “But, like, we’re not really suited?”

  
“Okay,” Charlotte said, still reassuring. “Do you want to tell me about her?”

  
“…No,” Lizzie said. “Another time, maybe. I just wanted to tell you this, you know?”

  
“Not what I expected this afternoon, but I’m glad for it, Lizzie. I’m glad for you.” There were muffled noises from her end, so Lizzie knew to expect her next words. “Look, I have a meeting, sorry, I have to go. But we’ll come back to this later, alright? I’ll call you tonight and you can tell me at great length about everything.”

  
“Go kick some corporate ass!” Lizzie told her, and Charlotte was laughing as she hung up. Lizzie turned and grinned a bit stupidly into her pillow. She really did feel better.

* * *

In the end, the whole ‘feeling better about telling Charlotte’ managed to last her about a week. By that point, Lizzie realized that Charlotte had definitely twigged on to the way Lizzie dodged her assumptions that she’d told Jane and Lydia, and wasn’t going to keep holding back for long. But she really didn’t want to tell Jane, for the aforementioned paranoid assumption that she’d see her and Caroline together and somehow Know, and Lydia would never be able to keep a secret from Jane – especially since Lizzie could never explain why it needed to be secret. It was almost enough to make her wish she hadn’t told Charlotte after all.

  
And then, to top it all off, a Thing happened with Caroline.

  
It started innocuously. In fact the whole thing was innocuous. And most people, she was sure, wouldn’t have thought it such a big deal. It wasn’t one she could ever mention, anyway. She could only call it a Thing in the silence of her own head. Which wasn’t much of a silence, because when she thought about it her mind produced the equivalent of a pack of gibbering monkeys. Did monkeys come in packs? She would have to look that up. It would be better than thinking about the Thing.

  
She’d been in Caroline’s apartment one morning, hanging around a little aimlessly while Caroline took a shower. She decided to make a start on the coffee, and went to move some paperwork even further away from the table – she’d had a spate of spilled drinks that week in her own apartment, and if her streak of clumsiness carried on here, she at least wanted to confine it to the marble countertop instead of the expensive rug or what would probably turn out to be incredibly important documents.

  
Her clumsiness overtook her, though, and she could only be glad it was when she was carrying the papers instead of the coffee. It wasn’t a large pile, so she ducked down to scoop them back into some kind of order.

  
That was when she saw the logo printed at the top of one of the pages lower down.

  
Don’t look, don’t snoop, she chanted to herself, even while she was in the middle of easing that page free. It could have ended up visible when she dropped the papers, she reasoned, which seemed like only slightly faulty logic. Well, she would feel guilty later. Quickly listening to make sure the shower was still running, she turned to read what she’d found.

  
Whatever she’d been expecting, this was not it. It was a reference letter. A reference letter as part of an application for a distance master’s program in law. A reference letter for Caroline.

  
The first thing Lizzie felt as she read it was an overpowering rush of warmth, a sudden wave of pride as a lot of small moments suddenly crashed together and she saw how Caroline had been quietly leading up to this. The time she’d been so willing to help Lizzie pick through some of the legislation surrounding start-ups and had referenced related regulations. The lawyer she’d been able to put Lizzie in touch with; Lizzie was only just remembering how Caroline had dodged the question of she knew her.

  
The pride, though, was almost immediately followed by anger. Why had Caroline never mentioned it? Did she think Lizzie wouldn’t think it a good idea, wouldn’t support her?

  
And then came the shame. Caroline didn’t need to tell her; Lizzie could have asked. She so rarely asked Caroline about her work at a fancy LA PR company – part-time, she realized now, was that so she had time to apply for this? – and now she was hit by a worry that she’d never really considered Caroline’s work as relevant. Unlike her own company, which she told Caroline about at length, all the time. She poured out her hopes and dreams for it to Caroline, and never asked what Caroline’s goals or ambitions were. While Caroline was there asking the right questions, always interested and engaged. She was skeptical enough to make Lizzie work hard at coming up with solid solutions. And always spoke in a way that suggested she assumed Lizzie’s future success was assured. If you’d asked Lizzie earlier she would have said that would be irritating, a product of being born into a family with a stable safety net. Instead, she could only be annoyed by the fact she was actually kind of gratified by it.

  
But she didn’t give Caroline the same thing. Not at all.

  
It was surprisingly easy to put to one side in the moment, as Caroline came out the shower and they both rushed off for the day. But that evening, back in her own apartment, Lizzie succumbed to a nice bout of full-on panicking. She realized she had to end – whatever this was. It wasn’t going anywhere. It couldn’t. But it had been going on for long enough that she was getting confused; she shouldn’t be feeling so much guilt and shame. It had been about fun, hadn’t it? Isn’t that what Caroline had said, all those months ago? But that was thing – it had been months since that. Since they’d had anything approaching a conversation about what this was. She’d just stuck her fingers in her ears and let Caroline take the reins, and now she was mixing metaphors and angsting alone in her apartment. That was a bad sign if ever Lizzie saw one. She knew this – thing – could never be anything. She had to take this as a sign to end it and move on, before she got even more confused. And then she could talk to Jane and Lydia about the travails of dating across genders and not have to stress about who she was seeing.

  
To her eternal shame, she did it by text. She knew it was the worst even as she did it. Caroline sent her a friendly message asking if she was free Friday evening, and she laboriously typed out: _Sorry, no. We should stop doing this_. She typed _It’s been fun_ , looked at it, grimaced, and backspaced. _Thanks for everything_ , she tried, and deleted that too. Her terrible tiny message stared at her. She stared back. _I think it’s for the best_ , she added, and hit send before she could agonies over it any longer.

  
Caroline never replied.

  
Things were – strange, after that. Had Caroline really taken up so much of her time? She found herself missing Caroline’s comfy bed, her well-equipped kitchen – and, fine, Caroline too. She missed having someone to offload things onto or talk things out with. And she especially missed having someone to wake up next to. Caroline had been softer in the mornings, before she put on what Lizzie privately referred to as her public face. She was more willing to laugh, to let her hair get tangled. To work up a sweat.

  
Anyway. Lizzie decided this would be a good opportunity to focus on her work. She told Jane and Lydia about the bisexuality thing (Jane: “I’m so happy for you, Lizzie, this is such a wonderful thing”; Lydia: “Bitch this means you have so many options, incred-ib-le! Ooh I’m gonna order us matching rainbow necklaces, you have to promise to wear it this will be awesome!”) and was weirdly touched by the return of Lydia’s old excited shriek. She decided to put off telling her parents until she (potentially) had a partner to introduce to them. She didn’t feel like dating at the moment, though. She told Jane and Lydia that she wanted to focus on herself for a while.

  
She told that to Charlotte, too, when Charlotte next rang to see how she was doing. Charlotte was silent for a moment, staring at her over the video call.

  
“I’m coming to see you,” she announced. “I have a bit of leave I can take-”

  
“-You have so much leave you can take, Ricky should let you take it-” Lizzie interjected as always.

  
“-so I’m coming for a long weekend. I know you have no plans the last weekend this month, so I’m coming then. No arguments.”

  
Lizzie simply nodded meekly. This was Charlotte in steamroller mode. She didn’t know what had set it off, and she didn’t want to risk making it worse.

  
“It has been too long since we were in the same place,” she said instead of arguing. “And yes, as you well know, you stalker, that weekend is fine. Text me when you think you’ll arrive. I’ll make brownies!”

  
“If you truly love me, you’ll buy them instead.”

  
“Come on, that was one time!”

  
“Fire extinguisher, Lizzie. Maria almost broke a tooth trying to bite into the remains.”

* * *

Lizzie was half-worried, half-hopeful that a work emergency would come up. For once, though, nothing did, and Charlotte showed up as planned three weeks later. After enveloping Lizzie in a hug, she steered her inside to the poky apartment’s tiny kitchen, where there was indeed a packet of store-bought brownies waiting. Lizzie would take no judgment for that, she was not to be blamed for the kitchen’s terrible oven. But she’d vowed never to tell Charlotte about the attempt.

  
To her surprise, instead of answering Lizzie’s questions about how her journey was and if she’d brought Lizzie the stolen office supplies she’d asked for, Charlotte sat Lizzie down at the kitchen table, made them both tea, and then sat down opposite her with a determined expression on her face.

  
“Something’s up,” she said. “Spill.”

  
Well, that was blunter than Lizzie had expected. “What?” she said, thinking she was doing a creditable job of looking confused. “What do you mean?”

  
“I mean whenever I ask what you’ve been up to, your only answer at the moment is work. I mean every time Jane asks how you are, you say ‘I’m fine’ in this weird faux-happy voice that sounds like it belongs in a horror movie. Yes, we’ve been coordinating on this. I mean you’ve fobbed off her and Bing all month about going round to see them. Something’s up, Lizzie. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, that’s fine. But you need to talk to someone.”

  
Lizzie stared at her. She knew Charlotte would not leave this alone. She needed to come up with something plausible that did not, in any way, in the slightest, involve mentioning Caroline Lee.

  
Something close to the truth, though. Her panicked mind was not prepared enough to come up with a great believable lie on the spot. Couldn’t Charlotte give her warning about these things?

  
“So,” she said, slowly. She tried to sip her tea as a stalling tactic but it was still scalding, so there was nothing for it but to plow on. “You know that maybe, not-really-suited someone I told you about?”

  
Charlotte nodded. Lizzie wished briefly for a fire alarm, or a kidnapper, or something that would regrettably interrupt this tête-à-tête. The world did not oblige her.

  
“Well – we sort of had a thing. Briefly. And it ended badly. And it was kind of embarrassing and sort of my fault which is why I didn’t want to talk about it? So I figured time is the best healer and all, you know, give it a month and things will be back on track.”

  
Charlotte nodded slowly. Then, as Lizzie had feared, came the questions.

  
“But you’re not really back on track, Lizzie. Was it really so bad?”

  
“Not all of it,” Lizzie said, “not by a long way. But we argued a lot.” Less than she’d expected. “We just come from totally different backgrounds.” Though Jane and Bing work fine. “We want completely different things.” Or so I thought. “Look, I’m trying to put it behind me. It was a bad idea all round.”

  
“So what did she think?” was Charlotte’s next salvo. “This woman. Did it end badly for both of you?”

  
“Hard question, Charlotte!” Lizzie shot Charlotte a plaintive look, but Charlotte was unmoved. “Fine. Erm… Maybe? I’ve not really – seen her, since. We never really talked about what we were.”

  
“But she was the one who ended it?”

  
“…No. That was me.”

  
“But you were always safe? You never felt – threatened?”

  
“No! No, Charlotte, nothing like that. No, like, just emotionally, you know?”

  
“Hm.” Lizzie was worried. Charlotte was speculating about something, she could see it in her eyes. “So you ended it, but you feel terrible. And you won’t tell me what she felt about it. Can you tell me who she is?”

  
“No!” said Lizzie, too fast. “No, Charlotte, I really don’t want to dwell on it. Look, I love you to pieces and you are the best bestie ever for coming to snap me out of my funk which fine, I admit, I’ve been in a funk. And we can talk about this properly later, I promise.” After she’d had time to work out what she could and couldn’t say. “But can we please, please, stick with small talk and brownies for now?”

  
“Of course,” Charlotte said, but spoiled it with: “For now. This doesn’t sound like something you should be bottling up, Lizzie.”

  
That’s not what she’d be saying if Lizzie told her who it was, Lizzie thought a little hysterically, and had to stifle the laughter bubbling up with a huge mouthful of brownie.

* * *

Even though she was on holiday, Charlotte still had to do some work (boo, Lizzie was going to send Ricky Collins a stink bomb in the post one of these days. Except knowing her luck, it would be tagged as a real bomb and she’d be in the news as one of these crazy ladies trying to blow up their exes). Lizzie took advantage of the window of spare time to carefully think over her story and how much she could tell Charlotte.

  
By which she meant she paced around her bedroom in a blind panic and found herself stuck on Charlotte’s question instead.

  
What had Caroline thought about it all?

  
She’d always initiated, but she’d never pushed. She’d told Lizzie at the start that it would be a bit of fun, but if that was the case, why had she kept going? Why had she put up with the arguments? Why, when she could have had so many people, had she persisted with Lizzie?

  
Why had Lizzie never asked any of this?

  
Well, it was too late now. And she had a limited window of pacing and stressing time.

  
Finally, in desperation, Lizzie turned to the way that had led her out of so many difficulties – had let her talk through things that seemed impossible to untangle. She made an entry for her video blog.

  
Okay, she was never actually planning on posting this anywhere. But the process was surprisingly soothing. She sat herself in front of the camera and pretended that Charlotte was behind it.

  
“Tell me what she said,” she imagined Charlotte saying practically. “Her exact words. Caroline always says precisely what she means to.”

  
Lizzie thought back. “So I asked her if she was in love with me,” she said. It sounded just as strange, even now. “I mean, I was strung out and totally misheard her and panicked and blurted it out. And she said: you think too highly of yourself, Lizzie. No, wait – that wasn’t it. It was ‘very highly’, not ‘too highly’. Why did I think it was very?”

  
“That implies a no,” pretend Charlotte pointed out. “Too highly means you went too far. Very highly doesn’t imply that at all.”

  
“She didn’t agree, though,” Lizzie argued.

  
“But she didn’t disagree. And you were probably sitting there looking horrified, am I right? What’s Caroline going to do? When would she ever pick outright truth over practicality?”

  
“She wouldn’t,” Lizzie said. She was staring at the camera, knowing she would have to delete this before she even played it back to herself. She probably looked mad. “She would – pacify me. Like she’s been doing all along. Setting whatever pace I’d be comfortable with.”

  
Lizzie was going out of her entire mind. Had Caroline essentially admitted to being in love with her? Had she actually just hallucinated the whole thing in an exhausted haze? Had she been in love with Lizzie and Lizzie had ended it by text? A two-line text, no less? Why had Lizzie even ended it? Why had Lizzie even started it? Why had Lizzie decided that letting herself be seduced by Caroline Lee would ever turn out to be a good idea?

  
“Okay, I’m all wrapped up,” Charlotte said, sticking her head around the door, “we can – wait, what are you doing? Why do you have your camera out? And what did you do to your hair?”

  
“I’m going out of my entire mind,” Lizzie informed her.

  
“Okay, okay, I think I need to sit us both down for this.” Charlotte came and pushed Lizzie onto the edge of the bed, pushing the camera out of the way and perching herself on the futon just next to it. “What has happened in the last hour to make you go out of your entire mind?”

  
“Maybe it was all just a hallucination,” Lizzie told her. “Maybe I just ate some incredibly strong cheese that night and just dreamt the whole thing! That seems more likely, you know? Except it wasn’t at night. And we didn’t eat cheese. Ca – I mean, she always refuses to eat anything strong enough that a mint might not cover it up afterwards. It drives me up the wall. I mean, it did.”

  
“You’re not making any sense,” Charlotte told her. “What did you hallucinate?”

  
“I don’t remember!” Lizzie tried to modify her tone done from a shriek, but it was hard. This was worth shrieking about. Maybe this was how Lydia felt all the time. “I didn’t write it down at the time, so I think I remember the words but maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. Why don’t I do video diaries any more?”

  
“Come to a good finishing point, living life instead of recording it, venturing into new pastures,” Charlotte said promptly. “You’re going to have to tell me what this is about, Lizzie.”

  
“You have to promise not to freak out,” Lizzie said. “One of us freaking out is enough.”

  
“…Why am I going to freak out as well?”

  
“Because I’m going to tell you who this mystery woman is that I was sort-of-but-not-really seeing for the last seven months.”

  
“…You said brief. Seven months is not brief, Lizzie. But go on.”

  
Lizzie took a deep breath. She could say these words. She’d said them a lot this year. The words themselves were not an issue.

  
“And they are?” Charlotte said, and Lizzie realized she had said all that out loud.

  
“I really am going insane,” she said. “I’m actually going to tell you. This is insane.”

  
There was a pause.

  
“…Yes?” Charlotte said encouragingly.

  
“Caroline. Lee. Bing’s sister. That Caroline.”

  
There. She’d said it. And, just like she’d asked her not to, Charlotte freaked out. Lizzie didn’t blame her, though.

  
“Woah.” Charlotte stood up and then sat down again, then immediately stood up again and started walking up and down, hands in her hair. “Woah. Wait, wait, wait. Say that again. In full sentences, as clearly as you can.”

  
“Me and Caroline,” Lizzie said, helplessly. “We’ve been – seeing each other? Sleeping together? I don’t know what to call it. Then she told me she loved me, sort of, I think, or maybe not, anyway, I freaked out and ended it. And now I’m wondering if it was a terrible decision because I cannot stop thinking about her. Even though she should have been a terrible decision. You know, in and of herself.”

  
“You.” Charlotte said. She stopped in front of Lizzie for a moment. “And Caroline. Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt. There are no words.” She spun around and then back to Lizzie. “This is a joke, right? No, wait, I can see it. Okay, I can totally see it. It took me a moment, but there you go.”

  
“What?” Now it was Lizzie’s turn to stare in a mix of horror and confusion. “What do you mean, you see it?”

  
“I mean, she was always a bit obsessed with you. Okay, obsessed is a strong word. But she watched all your videos, and she was always popping up to fling her perfect hair at you. And you know she only goes to hang out with Jane and Bing when you’re there too.”

  
“That’s not true,” Lizzie argued, but Charlotte had her most knowing expression on.

  
“You wouldn’t notice, because you don’t know if she’s not there when you’re not – because you’re not there.”

  
“Neither are you!” Lizzie said, but Charlotte simply carried on.

  
“Lay it out for me,” she commanded. “Who decided to keep it a secret?”

  
“…Me,” Lizzie said. “Caroline was fine either way, she said. But she only said that after I made a big deal about not telling anyone. She might have just said it to one-up me.”

  
“You know, she’s been very supportive of you recently,” Charlotte said slowly. “Not in an in-your-face way. Just, you know, she used to hide insults in all her compliments, and now she doesn’t. Not about you. And there was that businessman she sent your way.”

  
“How do you know about that?” Lizzie demanded. “Are you really a stalker? Do you just get all your news from Jane now?”

  
Charlotte didn’t answer. She was too busy staring hard at Lizzie as another thought struck her. “Is she behind your new wardrobe?”

  
“…Yes,” Lizzie admitted. “It’s so hard to stop her! Things just appear in my cupboards, and she’s taken all the tags and receipts so I can’t return them. And they always fit annoyingly well.”

  
And now she was thinking about all the other things Caroline did. The meals and the mornings. The time and the attention. How well did Lizzie know that Caroline never spent time on things she wasn’t completely invested in?

  
“Wait!” she said now. How had she never thought about it like this before? “She totally set me up to bump into Marianne!”

  
“Marianne?”

  
“The anti-Lady Catherine! You know, the one who showed me how to put in an application for that tender in the summer and said she might be willing to invest if I show growth potential this year. I just thought it was a great coincidence. But there was something she said about this charity ball…”

  
“So Caroline supports you,” Charlotte said slowly. “She agreed to keep your relationship a secret.”

  
“She let me set the pace,” Lizzie said, realizing. “Always.”

  
Charlotte sighed, and Lizzie waited for the next pronouncement to fall.

  
“You know, I’d been hoping you were just blinded by sex or something. I can’t believe I’ve reached a point in my life where I found myself willing you to tell me that Caroline Lee is good in bed.”

  
“Of course she’s incredible in bed!” Lizzie yelped, and then replayed those words to herself and groaned. “Why did you make me say that, Charlotte. Go wash out your ears. She was though, obviously.”

  
“Obviously?”

  
“I mean, you’ve seen her! That was never in question.”

  
“…Okay,” Charlotte said slowly. “I’m not sure you can hear yourself right now, but you sound pretty besotted too.”

  
“But what did she see in me?” Lizzie asked a little helplessly.

  
“You take her seriously,” was Charlotte’s unexpected response. “You disagree with her all the time, but you always consider what she says. You expect her to be an intellectual equal.”

  
“She is!” Lizzie said, bewildered that that would even be in question. “You know how sneaky she is, Charlotte. You have to be clever to manage that much scheming.”

  
Charlotte simply nodded like her point was proved.

  
“So let’s take her name out this for a moment,” she said, and Lizzie stiffened in alarm. That was Charlotte’s business voice. “So you meet a woman. She’s gorgeous, good in bed – thank you for telling me that, by the way, please never mention it again – she listens to your interests and helps you out wherever she can, she’s thoughtful… Why did you break up with her?”

  
“We disagree on everything!” Lizzie cried, but she realized that wasn’t quite true any more. The more time she’d spent around Caroline, the more she’d started to understand her crazy point of view. And in return, Caroline had been making more of an effort to accept what she’d used to call Lizzie’s ‘ineffectual bleeding heart opinions’. She hadn’t said that in a while, actually.

  
“You disagree on things,” Charlotte said. “That’s probably never going to change. And we all know she’s kind of self-centered and a total snob. But at the end of the day, is she still the person you want to come home to?”

  
Home. Lizzie was startled to realize she wasn’t even picturing her own slightly poky apartment, even though they were in it right now. She was picturing Caroline’s apartment. The meals they’d shared in the kitchen; the mornings she’d spent waking up beside Caroline; that night they’d stayed up late tucked under a blanket on the terrace, each determined to win an argument that kept branching off until Lizzie couldn’t remember where they’d started, only that it ended with her falling asleep on Caroline’s shoulder, Caroline’s soft breath over her forehead.

  
She was such an idiot.

  
“I should never have broken up with her,” she realized.

  
“It sounds that way.” Charlotte was staring at her, assessing.

  
“How did you process this so quickly?” Lizzie demanded. “I’ve been torturing myself with this for weeks, and it takes you ten minutes?”

  
Charlotte shrugged. “I do admit, at first glance it sounds kind of crazy. But at second – like I said, I can see it. And you kind of sound head over heels for her, Lizzie. The look on your face just then? Disgusting. Your face should never look that soppy. Maybe that’s why she tolerates you, you know. That was painfully adoring, and I bet Caroline loves that kind of gross behavior when it’s directed at her.”

  
Lizzie groaned and buried her face in the duvet. She never wanted to come out. Wait, that was a terrible double meaning. There was no escape. She groaned again.

  
“Look,” Charlotte said, sitting beside her and patting the top of her head. “It might not work out. But from what you’ve said, you owe it to both of you to try. Yes, everyone will freak out. But I’m honestly kind of impressed that Caroline is willing to face that? You have to know that you’ll come off better with the people you know that she will with her crowd.”

  
“Why are you always so reasonable,” Lizzie said into her pillow.

  
“If you didn’t like what I was saying, you would have argued your way out of it already,” Charlotte said too reasonably.

  
“I know what this means.” Lizzie could see it looming in front her.

  
“I wish I could be there to see it.”

  
“Urgh. This is going to be the worst.”

  
She was going to have to apologize to Caroline Lee.

* * *

Lizzie knew she should call Caroline, but she was too sure she’d wimp out when it inevitably went to voicemail. So instead she sent a message asking if she could come round to Caroline’s apartment to talk to her. Give her home advantage, and all that.

  
Lizzie knew that Caroline’s phone was glued to her hand. She knew that Caroline had to have deliberately waited almost exactly six hours to respond with an affirmative and a suggested time. Not that Lizzie was going to extrapolate wildly from that time gap, or anything. No, she was a sensible adult who made sensible adult decisions and approached relationships rationally!

  
Okay, she was still sounding crazy even to herself. This did not bode well.

  
Somehow, the time passed. The next evening, Lizzie found herself outside Caroline’s apartment block. Caroline buzzed her up without comment. Lizzie had to force herself not to slow down as she approached the elevator. She was sure the doorman was watching her wipe her sweaty palms on her skirt. (Because of course Caroline lived in a building with a doorman to watch Lizzie make all her bad decisions.)

  
That meant she had to call the elevator, too. She persuaded herself to press the right button, and then there was nothing to do but let it take her up. She wiped her palms again. This should not be so difficult, dammit.

  
Caroline was in full armor when she answered the door. Lizzie was surprised to find how easily she could read Caroline’s choice of sweeping eyeliner and comfortable yet screamingly stylish outfit.

  
“Lizzie, how good to see you,” she said, and sounded exactly like she had back when Lizzie had first got to know her. It was a jarring difference to how she’d talked to Lizzie over the last few months. Lizzie hadn’t noticed the change in the other direction; it had happened too gradually. She noticed it now.

  
“I need to apologize,” she blurted out like a fool. Caroline raised one eyebrow and stepped back to let her into the apartment.

  
She didn’t go to sit down, instead leaning herself against the kitchen island and leaving Lizzie with the choice of walking around her to lean on another bit or standing awkwardly in front of her. She had to applaud the move, even as she shifted uncomfortably on the spot.

  
Caroline was plainly waiting for her to keep talking. She wasn’t going to provide any help.

  
“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said, blurting again. No way out but through, she reminded herself. “I was a dick.” Caroline nodded at that. Did her eyes soften a touch? Or was that just wishful thinking? “I shouldn’t have ended it like that. I – I shouldn’t have ended it at all.”

  
“I wasn’t aware we had something to end,” Caroline said, still in that awful tone. Nope, nothing softening there. “We had fun, Lizzie, but it was never going to last. There’s no need to tell yourself otherwise just because you feel some strange sort of guilt. Or have you been turned down elsewhere?”

  
“That’s not it!” Lizzie started forward and had to stop herself. It was just – Caroline was there, imperious, and she looked so good. Lizzie was definitely done for if she was still into her when she was being this sneering. “I don’t know if I ever told you, but I only realized I wasn’t straight with your stupidly sensual arm-touching thing, you know? And it’s not an excuse, I know, but with that, and our history – I couldn’t let myself hold onto it. I was kind of denial.”

  
Caroline’s eyes definitely looked warmer. Surely Lizzie wasn’t imagining it.

  
“What I’m saying is, I focused on all the bad things because I couldn’t let myself think of it as – as a thing. You let me choose how everything went, and I let you let me. It was a dick move to make you hide it for so long. And then I focused on all the good things and freaked out because – because it was too good. I worried that if it went on any longer, I wouldn’t be able to let go.”

  
“And you want to share all this now?” Caroline’s voice wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t her polite, public voice. Lizzie would grasp at every small victory she could get at this point. “I confess, I’m not quite sure what the point of rehashing all this old history is. Particularly since you never saw fit to mention it at the time.”

  
“Hence the apology!” Lizzie said, and oh Lord, she was saying ‘hence’. She truly was doomed. “For the dick-like behavior. I’m sorry, Caroline, I really am. I wasn’t fair to you. I should have talked to you instead of freaking out and sending that dick of a text.”

  
Lizzie paused, but Caroline didn’t say anything. I suppose it is my turn to lay it all down, she thought with a sense of inevitability.

  
“I want to date you,” she said. “For real. All in. But only if you want to. Obviously. Erm. I suppose what I’m saying is, I’m asking if you’ll go on a date? That is, can I take you on a date, Caroline?”

  
Caroline stared at her for a moment. Lizzie couldn’t quite read her expression.

  
“I have three conditions,” Caroline finally said. “One, you let me pick the location. Two, you let me pick your outfit. Three, it has to be incredibly public.”

  
Lizzie realized she was staring at her mouth. She flushed a little and took the most important thing from what Caroline didn’t quite say.

  
“So… That’s a yes.”

  
“Always so slow on the uptake, Lizzie Bennett.” The raised eyebrow was there, but – as it had been for a while, if Lizzie had been paying attention – the bite was gone. It sounded – affectionate.

  
Caroline closed the gap between them. Her face was so close to Lizzie’s. One hand came to rest lightly on Lizzie’s cheek, the other sliding round to cup her neck.

  
“Yes, Lizzie,” Caroline said. “I’m saying yes.”

* * *


End file.
